Celebrating the legacy of Nelson Mandela: Dr Naledi Pandor calls for a commitment to academic freedom and positive change.
Image: Facebook / DHET
Nelson Mandela University (NMU) welcomed Dr Naledi Pandor as its fourth chancellor on Wednesday, where the veteran politician and academic immediately invoked the institution’s namesake, calling on the university community to honour Nelson Mandela’s legacy by joining the global effort to “make good trouble”.
Pandor used her installation address to highlight the critical threats facing academic freedom worldwide, from geopolitical conflict to ideological dominance.
Pandor thanked the university community for the honour of selecting her to serve.
“It is a welcome pleasure to return to the academic sector and to have the opportunity to once more immerse myself in what I call the sane, cooling embrace of intellectual rigour,” Pandor said.
NMU is named after Mandela, who Pandor said was renowned for being a leader who called on all people to make every effort to be people who make good trouble. Mandela was referring to them to use their active conscience to make good trouble by changing the negative conditions of millions across the world.
“He believed the condition of harm experienced by many should persuade us to make good trouble for change,” Pandor said.
She said good trouble aims for positive change; bad trouble is merely a disruptive nuisance.
“President Mandela wanted people who make good trouble.”
She said Mandela would have agreed that “we are living in a deeply troubled geopolitical environment full of confused leaders, for want of a less respectable word, who seek to make bad trouble and to impose malevolent unipolarity on a weakened global community”.
On Wednesday, Dr Naledi Pandor was installed as the fourth chancellor of Nelson Mandela University.
Image: Facebook / Nelson Mandela University
“The ideological dominance of might is right, illustrated primarily by the United States of America, is a worrying and significant threat to us in higher education,” Pandor said.
She said all Gaza universities were bombed during the genocide. Universities are currently being bombed in the Israel-American war, which includes a temporary ceasefire with Iran. This occurs while America attempts to dismantle efforts toward equity, gender equity, and initiatives addressing the legacies of slavery and racial discrimination.
“Universities are being denied research funding, are being told what to teach, and are being told who they may admit,” Pandor said.
“All of these are antithetical to the essence of a university. And so if we live with the notion that what happens in global affairs will not harm us, I believe we need to be wary, and that is why we must globally join together and make good trouble to protect our institutions and to protect our ideals.”
Pandor stressed that this threat to academic freedom and free expression requires NMU to state its perspective on these rapid developments and affirm its commitment to freedom, justice, and generating new knowledge through unrestricted scientific inquiry.
She said the apparent lack of a progressive, humane global agenda articulated by the Global South should prompt NMU to increase efforts for Africa-wide academic excellence and greater African investment in leadership, research, and innovation.
“We must change the direction of Africa by investing in its progress. We must also steer, as the university, the creation of sustained and well-planned African collaboration in trade and business development.
“Our university, in its vision and mission, has a stated commitment to Africa, and this needs, in my view, to be pursued beyond rhetoric through real actions in support of Africa’s Agenda 2063. We should not be complacent about Africa lagging.”
Pandor said that freedom and democracy were never mere slogans for Mandela, but ideals to strive for.
“I assume this significant chair of chancellor with the hope and trust that you will honour the privilege of his name by living the legacy he bequeathed to all of us by being people who make good trouble,” Pandor said.
“We owe a legacy to all the founders of our democracy to express our gratitude to them by being hardworking, quality students, quality academics, quality administrators, quality university leaders, and quality leaders of society.
“I am certain that this is what I will see and experience in this increasingly great institution as I serve you in this honourable position of chancellor, and I thank you most sincerely for the confidence you have shown in me.”
thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za